After reports first surfaced Tuesday that the Trump administration had frozen $790 million in federal funding from Northwestern, even the University’s top officials said they’d been left in the dark of any official communications from the federal government.
But on Wednesday, further details emerged confirming the freeze. A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson confirmed to The Daily early Wednesday morning that the freeze at NU is underway, citing federal antisemitism investigations into the University.
Despite growing scrutiny of the funding freeze, so far, the Trump administration and University officials have shared details sparingly, fueling a groundswell of fear and uncertainty on campus. The move has led experts to consider the legality of any federal funding freeze.
“We will not tolerate taxpayer-funded institutions that fail to uphold their duty to safeguard students from harassment,” an HHS spokesperson told The Daily in an email.
The spokesperson also told The Daily the HHS is partnering with other federal agencies to review grants awarded to universities that have “failed to protect students from discriminatory behavior.”
In the last two days, multiple media outlets have reported that a senior White House official confirmed that “the money was frozen in connection with several ongoing, credible, and concerning Title VI investigations.”
Pritzker Prof. Paul Gowder said the federal funding freeze is illegal for a number of reasons.
Under Title VI and the Constitution, Gowder said recipients accused of violating the law have a right to a hearing with a neutral decision maker to determine whether any law was broken before receiving punishment.
“Even if (the federal government) found a violation, it only allows for the revocation of funding in the actual programs that there was a violation in,” Gowder said. “Evidently, Donald Trump thinks that he has the power to just stop federal spending, regardless of the law.”
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin, has already become a flashpoint in federal investigations at NU.
On March 10, the Department of Education announced it sent letters to 60 universities, warning the schools of “potential enforcement actions” if the schools fail to protect Jewish students on campus under Title VI.
The Education Department also launched Title VI investigations Feb. 3 into five universities, including NU, for “widespread antisemitic harassment.”
While the investigations and the funding freeze target antisemitism on campus, Ed Yohnka, American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois’ director of communications and public policy, said they are likely not motivated by antisemitism. Instead, Yohnka said President Donald Trump seeks to silence dissent.
“Donald Trump doesn’t give a damn about antisemitism. If he did, he wouldn’t be dining with known antisemites,” Yohnka said. “What Donald Trump cares about is power and nobody criticizing him, and he realizes that academic institutions are going to study his failed policies.”
Yohnka said it was “telling” that NU’s administration did not learn about the funding freeze from the Trump administration and never received an itemized document explaining the specific targets of the freeze. Rather, Yohnka said Trump is likely attempting to entrench his power over the United States’ higher education system.
Any attempts to freeze multi-year contracts to NU appropriated by Congress could face legal scrutiny, Yohnka said.
“What we’re witnessing across essentially every field that touches the federal government is we’re witnessing a bid for authoritarianism,” Gowder said. “Donald Trump does not believe that the law, or the democratic process ought to regulate his actions.”
Gowder said the “most strategically sound choice” moving forward is for everyone affected to come together and “impose costs” on Trump by filing lawsuits against his administration.
By coordinating in court, Gowder said it creates a solidarity for everyone affected to make it possible to resist these “abuses of power.” He pointed to schools like Princeton University, Georgetown University’s law school and Wesleyan University, where school officials publicly called for their universities to push back against the Trump administration.
“Those schools have adopted the right model to stand in solidarity with other institutions threatened by the authoritative government,” Gowder said.
Yohnka concurred. The pair separately described Trump as a “bully.”
To effectively combat the funding freeze, Yohnka said, NU would need to sue the Trump administration in conjunction with other universities. The University would need to determine which multi-year grants are being canceled, which he described as “dubious” from a legal standpoint.
The Daily reached out to the Departments of Education, Agriculture, Defense and Health and Human Services to clarify which projects and grants would be affected by the freeze, as well as the conditions to resume funding. The departments did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.
Jerry Wu contributed reporting.
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